


in the midnight sun (act one)

by cantsaythursday (horriblekids)



Series: werewolf 'verse [2]
Category: All Time Low
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-28
Updated: 2011-07-21
Packaged: 2018-03-06 15:32:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3139472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horriblekids/pseuds/cantsaythursday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Werewolf AU! Or, "How Alex Gaskarth became a werewolf and nobody even died or anything."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm importing my old ATL fics from Livejournal over to here. Once again, sorry not sorry for my brief flirtation with writing in second person but hopefully you guys will enjoy this anyway. This fic is... again, about 4 years old. Holy crap, I can't believe it's been that long.

You sit on the back porch watching him standing knee-deep in the freezing cold water, smiling and laughing and talking to Jeff while he holds the giant hose. It’s so hot outside you can see the sweat beginning to soak through his shirt, but you refuse to get in the pool yet. Your entire body aches too much. When you tested the water with your fingers out of curiosity, you shivered. So clearly Alex is braver than you are with his pants rolled up to the knees. “Babe, come help me with this,” he says. You can see the little goose bumps down his arms when you hop down to give him a hand.

Instead of helping with the hose, you wrap your arms around him from behind and kiss the side of his neck. “It’s too cold,” you tell him.

It’s an above-ground pool, so you step over the side - which is still droopy and wrinkled because the water holds the sides up - and press yourself against his bare back. He’s so warm. You can feel the heat radiating from him, even through your threadbare t-shirt. Alex shifts, rests the hose on his right hip and reaches back with his left hand to curl his fingers around your own. Then he laughs. “You’re such a baby. It’s not so bad.” He splashes you. And he’s a liar. You feel like a fucking polar bear, wet and shivering with your clothes sticking to you. But somehow he and Jeff get the pool filled quickly; you sit on the stairs with your legs hanging down over the side and watch the water level slowly rise. It’s not that deep, maybe four feet, but it still takes a lot of water to reach the fill line.

You asked Alex one day why you don’t just fill it with the garden hose and he laughed. He slid his hands down to rest on your hips just like you’re doing now to him and then distracted you with kisses so he wouldn’t have to answer the question. Later, when you were watering the grass seed in that one spot on the lawn that refuses to grow, you realized how long it would take to do with the garden hose, which pisses out a steady stream of water on a good day and barely drips anything out when you run water inside the house.

Once they’re done, Jeff shakes your hand and says, “See you around, Grieco,” because he’s one of those people that can’t get over the fact that you’re both named Alex. He’s a good guy. After Jeff has pulled out of the long driveway, out onto the gravel road, you stay with one hand on Alex’s hip, the other holding his hand despite the frigid water swirling around your legs up to your waist. You don’t really mind that he’s taller than you. It’s comforting sometimes, when the wolves are howling outside - or maybe they’re coyotes, you don’t want to scare him with the truth - at night and you can reach for him in the dark and snuggle into his chest.

Those nights, he wraps his arms around you without a second thought and kisses you until you can’t breathe. You know how hard it is on him, too, so that’s why you’ve never told him that when they’re howling like that, it’s for you. They call you. _Come out and play_ , sometimes, but also _You belong with us, come back_ even though you don’t. You didn’t choose this life for yourself. It was forced on you. But then you start to feel the shifting in your bones, the wrongness and the itch, and Alex always lets you go. Reluctantly.

Tonight Alex just pushes you against the side of the pool, arms bracketing you in and he looks at you with a note of sadness in his eyes. “It’s almost time, isn’t it?”

The sun hangs low in the sky, painting the horizon orange, pink, purple. You hug his waist tight and bury your face in his shoulder. “I don’t want to go,” you mumble against his skin. A few more hours, maybe. You already feel itchy and fuzzy, but it’s easier to pretend when you’re clinging to him. It’s not an instantaneous process, like, _POOF!_ Instant Werewolf! Right now your teeth feel too big for your mouth and you’re itchy all over. The moon was bright and almost full last night. You stood on the porch staring at it, pulling out the coarse hairs that sprout up from the backs of your hands until they bled. Alex came out then, just took your hands in both of his and kissed you and whispered sweet nothings until your body stopped screaming. He’s good at keeping you human.

“I’ll be okay,” he promises.

Even when you’re out there, in the forest, you’re still thinking about him. Sometimes you sit behind the house all night instead of running, crouched low in the bushes, watching him through the windows thinking _Mineminemine my mate MINE_. You’re afraid to go any closer than that. But from that distance you can still smell him whenever the breeze shifts, and it feels like home. Alex smells so good, sweat and dirt and sex. You nuzzle into his neck so you can get that little bit closer to him, breathe him in for that much longer before you have to go. His hair tickles where it touches your forehead and nose. With just the tips of your fingers you trace the shape of the angry purple lovebite you gave him last night, wishing more than anything that you could stay here with him forever.

You tell him, “I know.” Seven years of this, and you still feel bad whenever your time of the month rolls around.

The heat makes it worse. It seeps into your bones and then you don’t feel at home in your body ever, more like you’re being tethered to this half-human form by invisible ties that can never completely be cut away. Alex kisses the tip of your nose, smiles sadly. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” You rub noses with him affectionately and stare into his eyes, so like yours but so unlike them too. His friends think you’re weird; really they have no idea. It’s not a normal relationship, no matter which way you slice it, but you’re okay with that. Because Alex isn’t just your boyfriend. Yeah, that’s what you call him when other people are around, but he’s your mate and that’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of bond. He belongs to you and you to him. When you found him, you just knew. You were obsessed with him. You couldn’t stop thinking about him and you were so terrified he wouldn’t feel the same way. And then, once you knew that he did you were afraid that this stuff would scare him off, this stupid fucking _werewolf_ stuff that you hate and you can’t control. Because you can’t possibly keep him safe once you’ve turned; there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to stop yourself in time once the wild part of your brain has free reign. He always looks so sad on the night that you leave.

He asked you once if you would consider it and you said no. You can’t do that to him. Alex is so beautiful, so perfect, so utterly fucking human that you don’t want to lose that. Even though he’s totally the alpha in this relationship, you said no and that’s the only time you will ever deny him what he wants.

You hook your index fingers through the empty belt loops on his jeans and tug playfully. “Is there time?” he asks, worrying his lower lip doubtfully.

“Yeah,” you say. You don’t even look up at the sky this time; you don’t care. Alex peels himself out of his wet jeans while you pull off your own clothes and drop them over the side onto the grass. Not like you’ll need those anyway. He presses you against the side again and kisses you, raw and needy. It’s not really anything worthy of adulation - it’s you and Alex fucking in the pool quickly before you have to go. He’s a little rough but it doesn’t hurt; you’re used to it, you like it. When you come home in a week, he’ll make love to you. And that’s the really special stuff - then, he’ll take his time and he’ll be sweet and gentle because he misses you when you’re gone.

Sometimes you want to rip apart his skin and crawl inside his body where it’s safe, so you’ll never have to leave him. Thinking about it makes your heart heavy and sore.

Afterward he says low in your ear, “Don’t go,” and his voice sounds so desperate that you want to cry. This isn’t fair. Mother Nature has a fucked up sense of humour for giving you the greatest love of your life and then tearing you away from him month after month. “Please baby, don’t go, I love you, I _need_ you.” But you both know it won’t be much longer; your skin is crawling and the hairs are popping up on the backs of your hands, up your arms, all at an alarming rate. He kisses you all over your face and you cling to him, shaking so hard it feels like your body is coming apart and you almost pray that it does. This is the hardest part. You’re trying so, so hard to stay human but it’s not fucking working.

“I can’t,” you whisper, hoisting yourself over the side of the pool. “I love you too much to stay.”

It’s twilight and the wolves are circling the house, waiting for you. You lean over the side and brush his hair out of his eyes, despite your shaking hands slowly becoming twisted nightmare shapes. Alex’s eyes are full of tears when he looks at you. Something in your back goes _pop!_ and it feels like your tailbone is being ripped out and, hey, tail. You try not to throw up. “Stay safe,” he pleads. “Just stay safe.” He kisses you one more time and this time you can taste his sadness in the tears streaking down his sunburnt cheeks.

You rub your nose against his for the last time. “I promise. Alex, I have to go now.”

He lets go of your shoulders and turns away. You walk slowly across the yard, step over the property line. There’s silver buried under the property line just in case. You won’t be back for a week. On the other side of the line, the wolves greet you. You drop to your hands and knees, throw up in a bush, and wait. Your body jerks and twitches and snaps until it’s over, finally. Only then do you let yourself look back at the house, all lit up against the night sky. Alex is on the back porch still. You throw your head back and howl balefully. It’s soft, and the wind has to carry the words out to you, but you can still hear him say “I love you too.” Then, you run.


	2. Chapter 2

Alex wakes up in a cold sweat the first night and panics when Grieco isn’t in bed next to him. Then he looks out the window and he remembers. He drags himself out of bed and hunts in the laundry basket, but they just did laundry yesterday. He can only find one of Grieco’s hoodies. But it’s enough; he carries it back to bed with him and hugs it to himself miserably with his face buried in the soft fabric. The tears sneak up on him. After half an hour of lying in bed crying he realizes he’s not going to be able to sleep.

He brings one of the blankets from their bed and wraps it around himself so he can stand on the back porch. It’s really not warm enough, he realizes, as he pads across the damp grass barefoot. Their property is bordered by trees on all sides and sometimes he can hear them running the forest at night. Tonight the sounds of canine feet rustling through the dead leaves are close by.

In the darkness, he can just barely see the bright pair of eyes watching him. He sits down in the grass and pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “Hi, baby. I love you.”

There’s a soft whine in response.

Somewhere off in the distance, thunder rumbles and shakes the sky. “Don’t worry, I’ll go back soon. I just wanted to tell you that I miss you.”

The rain comes on suddenly and it’s one of those torrential downpours that soak everything in its path. Alex runs back to the house, but he doesn’t go back to bed. Instead he stands inside the sliding glass doors looking out into the night, shivering under his wet blanket. He really hopes Grieco is okay. He _needs_ him to be, because otherwise he might as well die too. It never storms this badly here. It’s worrying. Lightning streaks the sky; his stomach lurches. They have to be okay.

He stands there until he hears the loud, echoing howl over the winds and thunder. It sounds so sad. Sometimes he wishes he could howl back just so that Grieco knows he’s okay, that he’s safe, that he’s lonely too. Alex presses his forehead against the glass and wipes away the tears that won’t stop coming. After another long while he gives up and goes back to bed, but he doesn’t sleep. He curls up with his boyfriend’s hoodie and watches late-night infomercials until his eyes hurt. It’s just not the same.  


  
*

  
Alex tries not to think about it. He works on his truck. He vacuums the pool. He watches the news. Then he wishes he hadn’t watched the news because they’re reporting about a grizzly bear in the area and it makes his brain spiral into a panic. Bears mean hunters and hunters mean guns and bullets and _danger_. He walks through the forest banging pots and pans together and yelling, hoping that it will scare away a bear if it really is out there. Part of him is hoping that he’ll have an encounter with a wild creature, but not a bear.

Before he walks out over the property line, he turns and says, “Please be okay. I need you to be okay. I miss you.” There is no response. He wasn’t really expecting one.  


*

  
The third day passes by slowly. Alex sits in the water most of the day, lying motionless on his pool float and wondering whether it would be so bad if he drowned. He’s afraid to go into the house. He’s afraid that he’s going to hear gunshots ring out and not being able to get there in time. He watches the trees and eats granola bars anxiously. It is so hot out the grass is starting to go brown, the earth is cracked and dry and dusty. He rubs sunscreen over his arms and legs and chest and then cries when he can’t reach everywhere on his back.  
Grieco did that. They’d be sitting in the sun and he’d sigh, shake his head and go, “Alex, you’re going to _burn_ ,” like that would be the worst thing in the world. And so then he’d sit on the grass or in the sand in front of Grieco and wait. He didn’t mind it, really, because getting sunscreen on his back usually turned into a massage and sometimes sex, if they weren’t in public. He misses Grieco’s hands rubbing sunscreen into his back, somehow managing to make it seem less cold and slimy than it is.

He has a sunburn. It’s itchy and peeling. For the rest of the afternoon he lies there picking the skin off slowly. His nails are too short, bitten off out of anxiety. It’s just… he feels so out of sorts. It feels like there’s a piece of him missing, like someone walked up and chopped his leg off and then stole away with it before he could get it back. At least the sting when he pokes his burn and the little dull throb is feeling something.

Every time the wind rustles the branches of the trees, he looks over, just in case. There’s nothing there. Just like how he reaches out in the middle of the night and only finds an empty bed.  


*

  
Alex rereads his veterinary textbooks, just in case. He calls the animal hospital and tells them he’s going fishing for a week but he’ll have his pager if there are any serious emergencies. It’s two a.m. and Judge Judy is shouting at a guy who fell behind on his car payments and borrowed money from a friend when he hears the first gunshot. He races to the back doors and rips the long curtains away from the glass. There’s nothing that he can see, but it’s dark and it’s raining and he’s not taking any chances. 

Without any shoes on - without even putting a fucking shirt on - he grabs his bag and bolts out into the rain as soon as he hears the first howl. It’s not a sound he particularly wants to hear right now. “Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay…” he chants under his breath. His feet slide around in the mud but he doesn’t even care.  
 

There’s another gunshot, and then another and another. Alex’s heart is pounding in his chest. On some level he does realize how foolish it is to be running around in the dark with someone shooting, but his fear and anxiety for his boyfriend-partner-mate propel him through the trees faster than he can even think. He can only think about the ache in his chest, gripping his bag tightly and slowing as the sounds grow even louder and closer. Then he hears the _yelp_ and it feels like his heart has just gotten ripped out of his chest.


	3. Chapter 3

First, there’s the sound - a thousand explosions happening all around you - and you don’t know where to run. Then it clips you in the left flank and you let out a sound so loud it drowns out the rain and the gunshots and the howls of the pack telling you, _Run! RUNRUNRUNRUN! RUN!_  It hurts. You take a step, try to put weight on the leg and let out another whimper. Blood trickles from the wound, down your leg, matting your fur and making any movement you make feel sticky. Every time you take a step, you can feel it. The bullet is lodged firmly in your leg. It might be in the bone, actually. Either way, you can’t run away. You can’t.

And the gunfire? It’s getting closer.

You howl for the pack, warning them. You don’t want them to come back for you in case the hunters are getting closer. In humanspeak, this would be a _MAN DOWN! MAN DOWN! CEASE FIRE!_  kind of moment. Fire shoots up your leg the second you lie down, and you instinctively know you won’t be getting back up again. Your breathing is labored, your heart is pounding and it just hurts all over.

They’re using silver-tipped bullets. The bastards. If you could, you’d be on your feet running towards the hunters to rip their throats out for endangering the pack like that. Instead, when you hear footsteps coming closer, you growl as menacingly as you can, which is a feat considering your leg is going to fall off. You can already feel it working its way into your bloodstream, poisoning you from the inside. The footsteps falter, slow, stop. Another growl. You think _Go away go away go away_  but then, the wind shifts and your brain becomes a mixture of _mineminemine mine mine MINE_  and panic.

“Baby. It’s me. It’s just me, it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here.” Alex falls to his knees, breathing hard, and he hugs you to his chest, running his hand through your fur. You whine and nip his hand, trying to tell him to _GET THE FUCK AWAY_  but he doesn’t pay attention. “I’m not leaving you,” he whispers, kissing you on the muzzle. He doesn’t protest when you lick his face.

You want to tell him, _iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou_  and _it hurts make it stop make it STOP_  but you can’t do either.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Alex says. His hand brushes where the bullet struck and you yelp. It’s hard, but you lay still when he starts poking around the wound carefully. He knows what he’s doing. If you had the use of your hands - your fucking _hands_  - you could hold the flashlight for him. He holds it in his teeth, instead. You don’t know exactly what he’s doing but it hurts and he’s moving the bullet around and your entire body is screaming to run, fight, bite, kill. When he realizes it’s hurting you, he stops. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles around the flashlight. “I’m trying to get it out, I promise.”

There’s a wet noise and a sharp jolt of pain as soon as he gets his tweezers around it, but then you feel it slide cleanly out of your skin. He puts something cold and wet on your leg and it feels like ice and you hate it, you hate it so much. It bubbles and fizzes. Next he wipes the stuff away, presses something down to stop the bleeding. You know he’s doing the best he can. Once he’s done all he can, he closes his bag and begins sobbing, wrapping himself around you as much as he can and burying his face in your neck.

You lick his face again. You don’t know how else to comfort him.

“I know you won’t let me stay here, but I just… Please be okay.” He holds onto you until the first light, crying quietly into your fur. And he does fall asleep at some point, despite the rain and the wind. You can feel him shivering, but it’s not like you can do anything for him like this. He’s going to get sick. You want to tell him to go home, but he is so stubborn and you know that he won’t. As soon as it’s bright enough for him to find his way back, you lick his face until he wakes up.

He lifts his head, rubs his eyes, looks a little disoriented. His hair is wet and matted from the rain and he’s probably got some leaves in his hair, but he’s beautiful to you even when you’re like this. You walk with him back to the property line, mostly to make sure he doesn’t do something stupid like hang around to keep an eye on you. _I’ll be fine_ , you promise in your head. _Go home. I don’t want anything to happen to you._

Before he crosses back over the line, he kneels down and hugs you one more time. “I love you, okay?” He sighs sadly and kisses your muzzle again. “Stay safe.” You lick his ear, neck, cheek and then growl at him until he goes back to the house. Then you throw back your head and howl for him, because your body is screaming _mine mine mine COME BACK mine mine mine my mate MINE_  and you want him there with you. But there are so many reasons that can’t happen. This is one of them.  


  
*

  
The radio says that there was a bear sighting just north of town, too close for comfort. Alex swallows hard past the lump in his throat when the announcer says it was last seen near the trailer park down the road. He pushes his eggs around on the plate but suddenly they don’t seem very appetizing. And then, the woman doing the morning news flits onto entertainment just like that. Um, Alex does not so much care about Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez getting flirty on the beach in Maui or whatever. He’d much rather know that his boyfriend is okay. But he knows that he’s not going to get any real information from the radio, so he switches it off and flips on his emergency radio instead and listens to the EMTs gossiping over the airwaves.

He thinks about calling someone to come over. It’s lonely in the house, but he doesn’t want any of his friends around. Sometimes he feels strangely territorial. It’s the fifth day. According to the newspaper, this phase of the moon should only last another two nights. That, at least, is comforting.

In the afternoon Alex goes out into the yard and stares into the trees for a long time. He walks back through them a little way but then he sees the blood that’s rubbed off onto some trees and stained the grass and feels sick. When he gets back to the clearing…

“Please still be okay,” he whispers. He crouches and feels around in the piles of dead leaves, which have been disturbed throughout the course of the day. Finally he finds the silver-tipped bullet and puts it carefully in the pocket of his shirt. He’s trying hard not to think about the dried blood and fur stuck to the jacket. It’s so crumpled from the impact that it’s almost unrecognizable. He can’t identify the caliber or the type of gun it came from.

When he’s on his way back he passes by a huge gray wolf, but it’s not Grieco. It looks at him and seems to nod, growling low as it approaches him. The message it’s sending is pretty damn clear, though. _Stay out of the woods. Let us handle this. He’s okay._  Alex doesn’t know how he knows this, but it’s like he can see the words hanging in the air. The eyes, he thinks, look really familiar.

“Thank you for taking care of him,” he says to the wolf. It steps closer to him, cautiously, and stops at his feet. He bends over and scratches it behind the ears uncertainly. Then it whines, and he realizes it’s got some burrs caught in its fur. “Hey, c’mere,” he whispers, slowly working them out of the thick fur. “I promise I’ll do whatever I can to keep you guys safe. I promise.” It’s not surprising that there are tears forming at the corners of his eyes. “Tell him I love him, okay?”

The wolf bumps his hand with its paw clumsily, almost like a fist bump. He walks away feeling like he’s just had a conversation with an old friend. It’s strange. But there are so many things he doesn’t know, secrets Grieco can’t share with him that it might be someone he knows. Some days he feels like there’s a huge chasm between them. Really, it’s a lonely life, being in love with a werewolf. Especially with the kind of bond they have.  


*

  
Alex doesn’t sleep that night. He lies in bed watching movies but not really seeing any of the action onscreen. Grieco’s side of the bed is cold. Besides, how can he sleep knowing that every night could be full of danger? His entire body is tense, ready to spring into action as soon as he so much as hears a twig snap outside. Eventually, he gives up on the bed and goes down to the basement with a flashlight to search for a sleeping bag.

He falls asleep on the back porch, huddled up in the sleeping bag with his vet bag under his head. Even when he does manage to sleep, it’s not very restful. Anytime there’s a sound from within the trees he wakes up and sits bolt upright, panicking and shining his flashlight into the darkness until he realizes it was just a bird, rabbit, deer, the wind.

It’s almost light out when he hears them running past. It startles him and he’s slow to sit up because he’s fuzzy from sleep, but one of them stops and this time he just _knows_. The wolf sits down and looks at him, cocks its head in this way that is so familiar. Alex’s heart starts racing. He runs over and hugs Grieco’s furry body even though he smells like wet dog. “Hi,” he breathes.

Grieco licks his bare shoulder affectionately.

“I know you can’t stay long. I love you, though.” He feels warm and tingly all over. “Hey. Tell your friend thank you for me. And stay safe, all of you. I mean it. Don’t you do anything brave or I’ll… I’ll…” he lets the sentence trail off without finishing it. “Just go before I don’t want to let you.” With a heavy heart, he lets go once again and sits back on his heels. A few minutes later, from deep in the forest, he hears the sad howl meant for him.

Maybe the other wolves know their relationship and that’s why they’re so friendly to him. Maybe he’s meant to be one of them and Grieco is only stalling the inevitable. They kind of have this _forever_  thing going on. Sometimes he wishes there were a way to make it permanent. Or, at least, more permanent. He wants everyone to know that, _Hey, this is mine, this is my boyfriend, this is my everything, this is my future._  


  
*

  
Alex is so on edge he can’t fucking concentrate. It’s not quite sunset and he keeps looking out the windows no matter what he tries to do. He misses Grieco. He feels so messed up about it that he calls his friend Danny to distract himself for a while, but all he gets is the answering machine and some bullshit message about Danny and Matt being on vacation, back in a week, yada yada yada. Instead he asks himself what advice he would get if they were having an actual conversation, and his general conclusion is that Danny would tell him to go jerk off.

It’s really not a bad idea. Part of the reason he misses Grieco so much is this weird, possessive thing. Like. If he can’t have what he wants then no one else is even allowed to _look_  at Grieco that way. It’s not that he’s that guy, he’s not the guy who controls his partner’s every movement or anything, it’s just… _his_. There is no rational way to explain it. So he decides to have a shower, strips out of his clothes and stands there waiting for the water to water up. It takes a long time; they live in an old house and their water comes from a well. The water heater is loud and ancient.

He steps into the tub and busies himself with body wash, lathering up his body and then standing under the warm spray until everything is rinsed away. The pipes hiss nowadays whenever either of them showers. It’s part of living where they do - everything creaks and groans. Showering feels good; he thinks about the water running down his shoulders and back, thinks about fucking Grieco in the pool, thinks about how good it will be when they’re finally reunited. He likes to take his time. Maybe this time he’ll ask Grieco to ride him. They’ve never done that before.

He tips his head back under the water, stroking himself slowly and teasing his nipples with the other hand. It would be better if he weren’t alone in the shower. They’ve only fucked in here a handful of times, though, because there isn’t really enough room for both of them no matter what position they try. He’d like to get Grieco on his knees in here. Alex’s favourite thing in the world is giving - and getting - head, so. He imagines it happening; he’d have his back pressed against the wall of the shower with Grieco on his knees, lips stretched around his cock. It would be so good, so hot and wet and dirty. Even better if, like he does sometimes, Grieco grabbed onto his hips and used his nails so they’d leave a mark. And then, once he’d come, they would get on the bed and he’d settle himself between Grieco’s legs so he could return the favour. His legs are too long to do it comfortably in the shower - he knows because they tried.

Afterwards they usually just cuddle for a while until they both fall asleep. Sometimes they make out. Sometimes they lay there talking about everything and nothing until the wee hours of the morning.

It doesn’t surprise him how quickly he’s finished, considering it’s been six days since they’ve had sex and he’s spent most of the week feeling anxious and distracted wondering if Grieco is okay. Normally it’s not like this; in a normal month he just lets Grieco go and then he goes to work and does stuff around the house and it’s not quite as painful for them to be apart. This time… feels different. Alex finishes cleaning himself up, dries off and flops onto the bed without putting any clothes on. He doesn’t actually feel any better. There’s an itch under his skin, a nagging feeling that something is not right and he can’t shake it.  


  
*

  
It’s nearly dawn when the howling starts. At first he doesn’t think anything of it; it’s early and Alex is groggy and Grieco always howls for him the morning before he comes back. But this is not the familiar, baleful howl he’s used to. It’s definitely coming from a different wolf. It’s a long, alarmed “ _Awoooooooooh_ ” that sounds terrified and he knows that they’re calling him, that something is horribly wrong. He stumbles out of bed, into jeans and shoes and a hoodie and races out the back doors with his bag slung over his shoulder as fast as he possibly can.

“Please, no, fuck,” he begs God or the gods or the universe or whatever fucked-up higher power watches over him every night. “Please let him be okay, please let him be okay, please let them all be okay.”

He’s halfway across the lawn when he sees the blood. That’s the first thing he sees, because somehow his analytical brain takes the reins and all he can see is blood, bleeding animal, solutions to stop the bleeding and check for infection even though his heart is screaming things that aren’t even words. The gray wolf he spoke with before stops howling once it sees him; he thinks it would come running to get him if the property weren’t lined with silver. The wolf howls again, nudging its companion worriedly. Alex’s heart leaps into his throat.

“No. No. Please…” He runs to Grieco’s side and fights back tears as he looks over the extent of the wounds. He’s lost so much blood. Fuck. And he doesn’t know how to make it _stop_  because the change is happening; it’s like he’s having a seizure and his body won’t stop jerking and shifting and Alex is so scared he can’t breathe. He barely even notices the other wolf changing, barely notices the guy putting a hand on his shoulder and pulling him back, telling him to wait. He can’t fucking _wait_. Grieco could be dying.

The hands pulling him back are more insistent this time. “If you don’t stop he’s going to kill you. He can’t control himself like this. You have to wait or you’re both going to die.” Alex turns, fully prepared to punch anyone and everyone who gets between him and Grieco, but then he hesitates. It’s Jeff Maker.

Jeff Maker is a werewolf. Wait. Jeff Maker is a _werewolf_? That cannot possibly be more fucked up, but Alex doesn’t have time to think about it since he’s kind of busy making sure the love of his life doesn’t die. “Babe,” he grunts, trying to get Grieco to stop fucking moving so he can apply pressure and stop the bleeding. “It’s me, it’s me, it’s Alex, you’re okay.” But there are claws and teeth going everywhere in addition to Grieco’s body twitching, he’s covered in blood and now he’s not sure how much of it is Grieco’s and how much of it is his own. He heard the sound of fabric tearing and felt the pain in his shoulder but right now that is not important.


	4. Chapter 4

The last thing you remember is the bear advancing on you on her hind legs, forepaws extended. Her claws looked sharp; she had you backed up against a tree. You remember a terrible pain in your side and then that horrible, familiar sensation like your spine is being ripped forcefully from your body. You remember thinking, _no no no it’s too soon no stop stop STOP_. You yelped for everyone else to run and they did, but then Jeff stayed behind - or maybe he came back for you, you don’t know - and he growled at the bear, lunged at her throat and you think he must have snapped her neck with the speed he went flying at her. Then he was nudging you from behind, pushing you forward despite the amount of blood gushing from your side. His howling was so loud, _HELP HELP HELP COME BACK SOMEONE PLEASE HELP_ and he didn’t stop urging you on no matter how much you protested.

After that it gets a little bit fuzzy. You remember trying to leap over the property line to go home because your heart and head and body were all screaming for Alex but you couldn’t. Jeff sat beside you and howled, licked you comfortingly, howled some more until suddenly there was an explosion of movement from the house. You remember arms around you, trying to hold you down because your body was out of control, but you panicked and kicked out and you don’t know what happened after that. It’s all a blur of pain and white spots in your vision and everything in you crying _Alex Alex please don’t leave me I love you stay with me please don’t go_.

You wake up in your own bed. It’s soft and warm and clean. As soon as you try to move, pain shoots up your right side.

Alex comes rushing in looking concerned and really, really tired. “Don’t try to get up,” he says, “you’ll hurt yourself.” He leans over, kisses your forehead. He smells good and clean and _home_. “I was so worried about you…” You wince slightly when he lies down next to you. Everything hurts. You let him fuss over you for a few minutes more, let him kiss you all over before you push him for explanations. Secretly you kind of like it when he does this, although you’d enjoy it more if you weren’t in so much pain.

“What happened?” you ask weakly, struggling to move around enough that you can snuggle up against him without hurting yourself.

He sighs. “I _told_ you not to do anything stupid and brave.” You whimper when his fingers graze your side; he’s checking something but he won’t tell you anything. When he presses his fingers against the skin a little harder, you yelp and try to back away from him instinctively. “Sorry. I just wanted to check your stitches.” Once he’s done poking and prodding you, he sighs again and runs his fingers through your hair gently.

This time you’re going to be a little sterner with him. “Tell me what happened,” you insist, curling your fingers around his wrist. “I need you to tell me. Please?” Alex rubs his hand over your chest sadly. He trails his fingers down your torso under the covers, traces your hipbone lightly, tries to distract you by kissing you and rubbing your inner thigh. It doesn’t work. You pull away from his lips, sigh, and go, “Alexander. Tell me.”

“You got mauled by the bear. I thought - I thought I was going to lose you,” he whispers. “Jeff helped me get you inside so we could stop the bleeding. There was so much _blood_ everywhere. I was so scared, I didn’t know what to do and you were changing and it wouldn’t stop and you looked…” He stops to rub at his temples and take a deep breath. “You looked so fucking small and you wouldn’t let us help you and Jeff kept telling me to get back and I wouldn’t listen.”

The realization dawns on you and it hurts more - if that’s possible - than your side. “I hurt you.”

“I’m okay. I promise.” He wraps himself around you as much as possible; you’re grateful for the warmth, and it’s comforting. Alex kisses the top of your head, tells you, “I’m more worried about you. You lost a lot of blood this morning.” More than that, it _feels_ like you lost a lot of blood. With Alex close by, you feel okay going back to sleep for a while, so you let the heavy feeling overtake you and drown out the constant all-over achiness. The next time you wake up, it’s almost dark. You haven’t dreamed anything yet - too tired - but Alex is sound asleep beside you. You roll onto your uninjured side and press yourself against the familiar line of his body.

*

When you dream, you dream of running through an open field. It’s strangely similar to one that you and Alex walked through when you first started dating all those years ago when you went camping. And when you dream, you are always a wolf. This time you are not alone. This time, an unfamiliar brown wolf is at your side, but you’d know those eyes anywhere. _Alex_. You want to ask him how this is possible, but it’s a dream. Anything is possible in dreamland. He nips your back leg, then races away as fast as he can. It’s maybe the wolfish equivalent of grabbing your lover’s ass in public or putting your hand in his back pocket. You chase after him, catch up to him, jump on him. He lets you lick him all over and then suddenly you’re having sex in the middle of the field.

The weird part is that when you’re having sex in the dream, you’re both human. You missed that happening. He’s smiling at you, laughing. He says, “C’mon, baby, keep up.” Are you supposed to know what that means? He keeps you pinned to the ground, kissing you playfully until you start to whine and beg for him to pay attention to you. Once that happens, he sprints away again. You blink, and he’s a wolf once more. Weird-ass fuckin’ dream. Dream-you chases after him and you wake up with your legs still twitching.

*

“Nightmare?” Alex asks when you wake up.

You shake your head. “No, just weird.” He doesn’t ask what it was about and you don’t tell him. He kisses you until you can’t breathe, but gently, like he’s afraid you might break. Maybe you will. It hurts when things brush against your side, still, though it’s nowhere near as bad as it was. You silently thank God for your accelerated healing factor.

He rubs his nose against your cheekbone and says, “You should sleep some more.”

“Okay.” You go back to sleep. Everything feels fuzzy and awful, anyway.

*

In the morning you feel much better. You get out of bed, go into the bathroom and look at your body in the mirror. The line of stitches is messy and hurried; you can tell how panicked Alex must have been when he did them by how ragged they are. The wound itself looks okay. It’s kind of pink still, but it has mostly healed over. The scar on your hip from where the bullet clipped you looks worse. It still hurts a lot, actually, and you’re walking with a bit of a limp to compensate for it. Alex must already be awake. His side of the bed was cold.

You find him in the kitchen, staring blankly at the coffee maker. You hug him from behind. “Not awake yet?” you tease, pressing your lips to the back of his neck. It’s a little disappointing to find him wearing a shirt this early. To be honest, you had been hoping to make up for some lost time today since your homecoming yesterday had been so… painful, for lack of a better word. You slide your hands down the front of his boxers; he gasps and you feel his back stiffen slightly.

He says, “Your hands are really cold.”

“Warm them up for me then.” You let him push you up against the kitchen counter, kiss him like your life depends on it. You keep your hands in his shirt, grasping the fabric to pull him closer to you until there is no space between your bodies. He’s being more cautious than usual and keeping his hands away from your injured side. So are you though, you suppose. The scratches on his arms are still red and angry and your fault.

“So. Cold hands,” Alex says between kisses. “You know what an awesome cure for that is?” You hope the answer is sex. Because it’s been a week since that happened and - honestly - that’s one thing about being a werewolf with a human mate that is kind of depressing. Everyone else gets to have tons of awesome werewolf sex because they’re all paired off, and you get to run around with Jeff and Evan, _monitoring the perimeter_ to make sure no one can edge in on the pack’s territory. Although, you’re not entirely unconvinced that the new guy’s bitchiness and jabs at Evan aren’t some kind of weird flirting on their part. Evan does tend to fall all over him like a lost puppy. It would be cute if they weren’t so particularly vomit-inducing.

You hop up onto the counter so you can wrap your legs around Alex’s waist. _Mine_ , you think happily. _Mineminemine my Alex my mate MINE_. At this altitude, you are almost the same height. He makes a soft, breathy noise when you start kissing his neck. The noises change to something a little more wanting when you push his boxers down and dig your fingernails into his hip. “Missed you,” you mumble against his skin. Your skin is buzzing with the promise of sex; instead of walking back to the bedroom Alex picks you up and carries you back, sets you down on the bed very carefully.

Alex says, “I love you,” then he frowns, because obviously sex is not going to work with you on your back. “Can we just,” he sighs. You sort of move onto your less-injured side and lean forward tentatively. “This is not going to work either. What if we…?” His frustrated look is so adorable that you almost don’t mind being too mangled to have sex. _Almost_. You kiss the corner of his mouth and shift around until you can lay your head on his chest and hear his heartbeat. This is good too.

“I love you more than anything,” you tell Alex. “Even if you are an idiot sometimes.”

The first time you and Alex had sex, he was so nervous that his hands were sweaty and he asked if you were okay about a hundred times. It hurt a little, like you’re pretty sure most first times do, but the reason he was so nervous kind of makes sense. He is the only person you’ve ever been with. He is the only person you ever want to be with. So that’s a pretty special thing, which makes the way he was so nervous and sweaty okay because even though it was gross, it was also really cute. Most of all you remember the afterglow; you curled up next to him with your head on his chest just like you are now, and he stayed awake with you until the sun went down and you had to leave him. He didn’t tell you he cried afterward, but you knew. You can always tell when he is upset. And right now, he feels probably a hundred times more upset than that first time.  
Sometimes you wish Alex were the moon so you’d never have to leave him. “Hey,” he says. “You went away in your head somewhere.” He has his arm around your shoulders. You want to push yourself into his body, under his skin. You just want to stay in bed forever and not deal with life.

Because as soon as you’re better, you’re going to have to explain everything and Jeff will have to explain everything. People are going to be really pissed off at you, and it isn’t like you can tell _Alex_ about it because you’re trying so hard to protect him from this. Somehow, no matter how hard you try, it doesn’t feel like enough anymore. It presses in on both of you from all sides; the wildness feels a little bit closer every month no matter how far you run, no matter how many join the pack. You’re straddling the line pretty firmly for the moment, but it won’t last forever.

You say, “I think I need more sleep,” and Alex nods sympathetically. He kisses your forehead and settles for just holding your hand when you finally find a position comfortable enough to sleep in.


	5. Chapter 5

Alex stands in front of the mirror with his shirt off, just staring.

There’s the bite on his shoulder. Yesterday it just looked puffy, swollen and pink. Now it is less pink. Or maybe it’s not; he can’t tell because most of the affected area is _sprouting hair_.

He wants to scream. He is a trained professional. Nowhere in his textbooks does it say what to do when people get bitten by their hot werewolf boyfriend mid-change and then the bite starts growing hair. It isn’t normal.

Once he’s finished wanting to scream he puts his shirt back on and calls Jeff.

*

Jeff tells him not to try hot-waxing the bite. Alex does not ask why he’s now privy to this information. Besides, he doesn’t own anything like that. He’s proud of his chest hair. He likes his chest hair. It makes him feel manly. He does try pulling the hairs out with tweezers, but that hurts so much it makes his eyes water. Instead he keeps his shirt on all day. He even wears it in the pool. Which sucks, because Alex really loves swimming. Grieco does not, though; he sits on the back porch with his book and reads for most of the afternoon.

“Why are you wearing your shirt in the pool?” Grieco asks, shielding his eyes from the sun.

Alex shrugs. “I don’t want to get skin cancer?” Before he has to come up with anymore stupid answers, he leans over the side of the pool, not caring that some of the water spills out onto the lawn. “Come over here and kiss me.” It’s actually kind of ridiculous how horny he is. His boyfriend gets up though, and kisses him slowly. He thinks they should have sex in the pool, again, but he doesn’t ask because that would be a very bad idea until he can take Grieco’s stitches out. They make out over the side of the pool instead, which is pretty nice in and of itself. He tugs the hem of Grieco’s t-shirt, pulls away and goes, “So I’m thinking you should take this off.”

The buzzing in his head, the queer not-quite-itch under his skin goes away when they’re touching. He’s pleased with himself when the offending garment drops onto the grass. They make out for a while longer and then Grieco asks, “Why are you acting all weird? Did I do something?”

“No,” Alex says, feeling vaguely panicked. “God, no, you’re perfect.” He anchors his hands on the rubber side of the pool and hoists himself over the edge. To hell with the ladder. His feet make two perfect _splssssh_ noises when they hit the ground. Grieco reaches for his hand and sighs sadly, taking in the long, thin slashes on his arms. They are shiny and pink still. Maybe the fact that they aren’t healing fast is a good sign… It’s a problem he still hasn’t been able to figure out how to solve. So far, all he’s noticed is that he has this weird headache, but even that is hard to pin down because he gets them a lot in the summer months from the humidity and the air pressure being unstable. “I just have a headache,” he says.

Grieco rubs his shoulders and murmurs, “Maybe you should have a nap. I know you didn’t sleep last night ‘cause your side of the bed was cold when I got up and you went to work super early. And you always get crabby and weird when you don’t sleep, so let’s go curl up and nap and we’ll order pizza for dinner, okay?”

“’Kay,” he sighs, following his boyfriend inside. They both strip down to their underwear - it’s too hot for clothes, really, and anyway Alex’s bite isn’t as gnarly as it was in the morning; it’s shedding and the skin looks pink and enflamed but otherwise it’s pretty unremarkable at this point. At the back of his mind he’s kind of hoping that he just imagined the hair, or that maybe, maybe it was hair that got embedded in the wound at the point of contact. People don’t get bitten and then start sprouting hair from the bite. They just don’t. Even as he thinks it, though, Alex knows it’s a fool’s logic. He’s been dating a werewolf for seven years and he’s seen enough people who have been bitten to know the signs. He doesn’t think about how many of them have never come back, haven’t survived. If he ignores the problem, maybe it will just go away. Maybe he won’t change.

“Are you done being a head case now?” Grieco asks, snuggling up against his side. “Mm. You smell like a wet dog. Stop spending so much time at work and stay home with me tomorrow.” It’s meant to be a joke, of course, but Alex’s stomach twists uncomfortably at the words. Grieco massages his scalp lightly, which helps his headache and also makes him sleepy. “Shhh, it’s okay, fall asleep. Can’t have you wearing yourself out taking care of everyone else when you need to look after yourself, too. I love you.”

He mumbles, “L’ve you too,” and then he falls asleep.

*

When he wakes up it feels like his body is on fire. He feels feverish all over and his hair is damp with sweat. “Baby,” he whines. “Babe, can you bring me some painkillers?” Then he opens his eyes and immediately closes them again because everything is too bright and hurts his head. So then he’s not turning into a werewolf, he supposes, he’s just got some crazy kind of flu bug that’s turning his bones into jelly.

Grieco brings him two Tylenol and a bottle of water and a kiss on the forehead. “How did you get so sick? Your skin is so hot… No, hey, don’t get up, you’re sick. You are supposed to stay in bed and let me look after you until you’re feeling better.”

“Might want to hold onto those for a minute,” Alex moans weakly, sitting up despite the fact that his body is actually _dying_ because he needs to throw up. “Gonna puke.” Somehow he forces his legs to hold him up long enough to carry him into the bathroom and then his body forcefully ejects the entire contents of his stomach in all its brownish-orange glory. Stomach acid is so, so painful on the way up. His entire body shakes with the effort of holding him up, of being awake; peripherally he is aware of his boyfriend rubbing his back but his skin is so hot it barely feels like anything.

Neither of them notice, in all the chaos of trying to find something for him to eat that his stomach will accept and several attempts at swallowing painkillers, that the scratches on his arms - and the bite on his shoulder - have completely healed over. Alex doesn’t even know what time it is. It’s dark and cool outside, though he doesn’t feel any cooler once they have the windows open and the fan blowing feebly at him. Grieco tells him, “If you aren’t feeling better in the morning and your fever hasn’t gone down then I am taking you to the doctor.” His fever is currently at a hundred and four; it would be worrying if he didn’t always run extremely high fevers. But Grieco is right: If it doesn’t go down then it could be extremely dangerous.

“It’s probably just a twenty-four hour thing,” he whispers. “Try not to worry about it.”

“I am trying. It’s not working.”

Alex sighs and kicks the blankets away from his side of the bed. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be okay.” They rub noses and then the usual shifting around to get comfortable gets underway; Alex quickly figures out that snuggling makes him too hot so he ends up on his side with Grieco’s hand curled inside his own. This time sleep is not so easy to find. He lies awake for another hour willing himself to fall asleep before he’s finally exhausted enough to pass out into a dreamless sleep.

*

The alarm seems about a hundred times louder than usual when it goes off in the morning. “Oh my god, shut _up_ ,” Alex grumbles, twisting around to find the snooze button and slams his hand down on it. He feels a crunch under his fist and forces his eyes open. Somehow he managed to smash the alarm clock; the plastic face is cracked and the red digits are… unreadable. “Um.” The next thing he realizes is that his fever is gone. Actually, it’s better than gone. He feels great. Grieco makes a small sleepy noise next to him, alerting him to his next problem.

He’s horny. He’s just really, really horny and he needs to get off right now.

“Mmmf, good morning,” Grieco yawns, rolling over to nuzzle him gently and kiss him. “Are you feelin’ any better? You feel less - _oh_. Guess you are feeling better.” They kiss and end up wrapped around each other as they are prone to doing, sleepily making out, touching all over and initiating sex without even needing to think about it. It feels good, Alex thinks, dragging his teeth across his boyfriend’s collarbone possessively. He thinks, _mine, mineminemineMINE_ and bites down hard enough to leave a mark. Sex is always good, but this is even better than usual, quick and hard and strangely possessive. They’ve been apart too long. A week is too long.

It’s afterward, when they’re curled up together just breathing that everything goes to hell. Grieco is touching him, just his skin all over, and then he pauses. He looks at Alex and goes, “Alex, what the hell happened?”

“What?”

“You weren’t going to tell me.” Grieco pulls away from him, suddenly looking fierce and hard and determined. “What, were you hoping it would just _go away_ and you could pretend nothing happened? Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? Do you honestly think I’m that stupid? Because I’ve been this way for nine years, Alex, I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be obvious to me when my boyfriend is _turning into a fucking werewolf_.”

Dumbly, Alex says, “Jeff Maker told me not to freak out. He said there was a high probability that nothing would happen because you were changing when you bit me. It was an accident! It’s not like, it’s not like I _planned_ for this to happen. I was trying to save your _life_.”

This is the absolute wrong response, but he’s horny as fuck and he can’t think. Grieco’s anger is like a sharp assault on all of his senses; he sits up in bed and twists his fingers in the sheets. “So not only were you not going to tell me but you told _Jeff_ ? That’s really great, Alex. That is just - that’s great.” He doesn’t fight back when Grieco hits him. His jaw aches for about thirty seconds and then stops. “Get out. Get out, get out, I don’t want you in here, get the fuck out of bed and just… go be somewhere else. I don’t want to talk to you. I am pissed. And you can sleep on the couch tonight. I am fucking pissed at you.”

“I love you.” He pulls on the first clothes he finds - jeans, t-shirt, mismatched socks. “I’m sorry. I love you. I love you so fucking much, please don’t be mad.”

“Get out.”

“I don’t want us to fight about this. I am going to work. Please don’t be mad at me. We can talk about this when I get home. Okay?” He doesn’t want to go to work, though. He wants to stay home and jerk off and have sex. He wants to scratch his skin until it all comes off his body. Grieco glares at him and refuses to speak to him. This sucks. This completely and utterly sucks. Alex gets into his truck and pulls onto the highway, keeping both hands on the steering wheel to keep from touching himself when he drives.

Oh yeah, this really sucks. He’s hornier than he’s ever been in his entire life, his boyfriend is mad at him, and he’s also _turning into a fucking werewolf_. The stalk for the windshield wipers breaks off in his hand when he goes to turn them on. So the rain beats down on the windshield relentlessly and the wipers won’t come on because such is life that not only is he having the worst day of his life, but now he needs to figure out how to explain to his mechanic that, hey, he broke the truck because he’s turning into a fucking _werewolf_. When he gets to the animal hospital, he stomps inside and flies through his paperwork so fast the ink from his pen bleeds through the top page onto other papers. Today is the worst day ever.

*

Alex calls home at lunch, knowing that Grieco will be there, but he doesn’t pick up the phone. It goes to voicemail. “Hey baby,” he sighs. “It’s me. Listen, I know you’re still mad at me and I really am sorry, okay? I was going to tell you as soon as I was sure. I didn’t want you to worry if it turned out to be nothing. I’m so sorry, babe. I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t be mad at me. I love you. Anyway… Um. I guess I’ll see you when I get home. ‘Kay. Bye.” He hangs up the phone sadly and tries not to think about what it means that he didn’t pick up. He _always_ picks up.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [saidtheskeletons](http://saidtheskeletons.tumblr.com).


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